


Heaven Can Wait

by keerawa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Heaven, Reapers, Reincarnation, Roadhouse, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-17
Updated: 2010-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The funny thing about my version of the Roadhouse,</i> Ash mused, <i>is how empty it is.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven Can Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/spnland/profile)[**spnland**](http://community.livejournal.com/spnland/) 'Chrysalis' challenge. Thanks to Steven and [](http://morganoconner.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://morganoconner.livejournal.com/)**morganoconner** for the beta. Spoilers up to 5x22.

Mary stood in the window of the old nursery and watched her boys drive away, curled up tight so that Sam couldn’t sense her. The poltergeist had burned her, burned her _again_. Even though she knew she was nothing but spirit, with no body to feel pain, she ached.

“Mary,” said a voice from behind her. Mary turned. It was a reaper; this one had taken the form of a young woman with dark hair and kind eyes.

“They’re safe,” the reaper said. “They’ll look after each other.”

It was true; she could tell that they would. And even though this wasn’t the life she'd wanted for them, John had trained them well.

“Are you ready to go now?” the reaper asked.

Mary didn't trust its gentleness. This reaper was just like all the others that had found her since the night the Yellow-Eyed Demon had come to collect on its Deal. Mary felt the flames spring up around her. She welcomed the pain, and the power that came with it.

“My boys are good hunters, but they don’t know what’s coming for them,” she snarled, the walls shaking around her. “I am not out of this fight.”

The reaper smiled. “Who said anything about leaving the fight?” And maybe there _was_ something different about this reaper, because there was something sly in her eyes, as if she were enjoying a good joke.

Mary listened, and in the end, she said yes.

* * *

  
It was over. For 23 years of his life and 100 years of his death, John had been trying to kill that son-of-a-bitch, and now it was done. John had grabbed Azazel. He’d held its slimy, hate-filled essence for just long enough for Dean to use the Colt, and it was over.

Only, Dean had made a Deal. Alastair had said so. John hadn’t believed him. But he could see it now, a black mark carved on his boy’s soul. Dean would go to Hell. The demons, they would – his mind flinched away from the memory of the things the demons would do to Dean.

He felt wrong, sick, all the torments of hell and the demon’s essence eating their way through him. But he had to. Had to…

“John?” a gentle voice spoke. It was a girl. Not a girl. A reaper who looked like a girl. “You can rest now. You’ve earned it.”

He looked up. Rest sounded good. But no, he had to … the Demon? No, the Demon was gone. There was something else. Something he needed more.

Demon smoke streamed across the landscape. In the distance, a wolf pack howled.

“Mary. I need to find Mary,” John remembered.

A cool hand rested on his forehead. “I think that can be arranged.”

* * *

  
_The funny thing about my version of the Roadhouse,_ Ash mused, _is how empty it is._

Once he’d cracked the Enochian network and started burrowing into other’s people’s private heavens, Ash found schoolteachers and nurses, musicians and artists, scientists and pro-wrestlers, CEOs and garbage men. Even a few record producers, which Ash personally thought might be an oversight on the part of the angels. But no hunters. Sure, Sam and Dean kept popping up like some kind of celestial Whack-a-Mole game, but aside from them? Nada.

Ash had worried there was some kind of ass-hat bureaucratic red-tape bullshit keeping his people out of Heaven, but when he hacked into St. Peter’s database, Jo and Ellen had a full-access pass. They were listed as no-shows. Nobody’d cared enough to go looking for them – what hotel goes out of its way to bring in guests who’ll trash their rooms, demand to see the management, and then kick their asses? But there was a new sheriff in town, and Castiel was real worried about Jo and Ellen.

Even with official backing, Ash couldn’t find them. It wasn’t until he ran into Aarti, this awesome dead Hindi hacker chick, that he got clued in. There was a whole other network that the angels knew nothing about. And that’s where Ash found them. That’s where he found _all_ of them.

* * *

  
Just off the Sinai Peninsula, a tourist was bitten by a shark. With blood in the water, and more sharks closing in, he was saved by a pair of dolphins who drove the sharks away so the man could be rescued.

Jo sped towards the surface. She leapt into the air, body held in a perfect, joyful arc, and then crashed back down. She slapped the surface of the water hard with her tail in celebration of their victory, and then dove for the bottom, where Ellen was trailing a school of cornetfish for their interrupted breakfast.

* * *

  
Meg drove up to the gates of the cemetery in Wyoming that held the Hell Gate. Rumor downstairs said the Gate was guarded by a pair of hellhounds, but she’d always had a knack for commanding hellhounds.

The Winchesters had locked Lucifer back in his cage. Well, there was more than one way to kick-start an apocalypse, and Meg had discovered a ritual that would allow her to unlock the Gate without the Colt. Let’s see how Dean coped with a few million demons out to recreate Hell on Earth.

Meg slit her meatsuit’s wrist, let the blood drip down her fingers, and knelt down to start drawing the necessary symbols. There was a low, rumbling growl from behind her. Meg stood up and spun around.

A huge grey wolf was crouched, ready to spring. There was something unnatural about the animal. Meg let go of her meatsuit’s vision and examined it with her demon-senses. Oh.

“John Winchester. Well, this is unexpected.”

The wolf bared its teeth and growled louder. Were the Winchesters dabbling in necromancy now? There were ways to trap a spirit in the body of an animal, but this wolf had none of the stink of death she’d expect from such a creature.

A rush of air from Meg’s left, and something slammed into her, knocked her down. It was another wolf, John’s mate, she realized as she struggled to keep it away from her throat. Both of them were on her now, snarling and tearing at her flesh. Meg tried to let go of the meatsuit, to escape, but the wolves’ teeth were ripping into her demon-self now, and it was too late.

* * *

  
Gabriel looked down at his corpse, wings flash-charred into the floor of the banquet hall with the energy of his demise. So this was what happened when you took a side.

Lucifer could have at least given him a big, dramatic death scene. Like the Winchesters! Gabriel’d always kind of enjoyed watching Sammy sobbing over Dean’s body. They loved big, they grieved big. But not Lucifer. Gabriel didn’t rate a single freakin’ tear from his big brother.

And there was something ironic about this situation. Because the entire time angels and demons had battled over the disposition of human souls, he’d honestly assumed that angels didn’t have any. Angels are immortal, after all. Or they were. Until they started slaughtering each other.

A being appeared at Gabriel’s side. A construct of entropy, given anthropological form through too much time spent dealing with humans. Gabriel could sympathize.

“Your Father says you can be at peace now,” she told him.

“Yeah, no thanks,” Gabriel answered. “Dad can take his ‘peace’ and shove it.”

“You’re looking for vengeance?” the reaper asked.

“What? No,” he scoffed. “I just … I left Heaven for a reason, you know. I happen to _like_ people.”

The reaper gave him a Mona Lisa smile.

**Peninsula Daily News  
September 6, 2010**

Residents are accustomed to raccoons opening coolers and garbage cans. But a bold young male raccoon has recently earned the nickname ‘Bandit’ after operating a Slushee machine in front of a dozen witnesses at this weekend’s seafood festival.

“Nobody tried to stop him,” reported the booth’s owner, Carmen Simons, “We just couldn’t believe he’d actually manage it. I changed out the nozzle afterwards, for health reasons, and everybody wanted to try the raccoon’s favorite flavor.” (Blue raspberry, now officially named Bandit Blue.)

Bandit also made off with an entire Dungeness crab, a plate of French fries, and the bikini-top of a young lady attempting to get an even tan.

* * *

  
Crowley knew, the moment he crossed the divide, that Lucifer was out of the cage. The raging, frustrated betrayal that had formed the chewy centre of Hell for all but a single year of his long demonic existence - was gone. Crowley didn’t panic. There’d been no omens, no sign of Lucifer’s escape up above on Earth. When Crowley reached the cage, it was empty. Maybe He and Michael had finally managed to annihilate each other?

_A young monk awoke with a beautific smile on his face. He gathered the two acorns that had appeared upon his pillow and went out to plant them in his favorite corner of the garden. Every day, no matter the weather or his other duties, he watered the ground around the young trees, whispering words of love and forgiveness. Over the years the trees grew tall, trunks leaning closer while their roots intertwined within the Earth, branches reaching together towards the Heavens._


End file.
